Product Description

When katharina blum spends the night with an alleged terrorist her quiet ordered life falls into ruins. Suddenly a suspect katharina is subject to a vicious smear campaign by the police & a ruthless tabloid journalist testing the limits of her dignity & her sanity. Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 02/25/2003 Starring: Angela Winkler Jurgen Prochnow Run time: 106 minutes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17002 in DVD
• Brand: Image Entertainment
• Released on: 2003-02-25
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: German
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 106 minutes

Amazon.com
A striking examination of the power of the police and excesses of the media, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum grows more pertinent every day. When the police burst into Katharina Blum's apartment, they fail to find the suspected terrorist they've been tracking and arrest Blum for harboring a fugitive. Immediately she becomes a media sensation; between the ruthless interrogation of the police, the even more invasive muckraking of a notorious tabloid, and harassment from the sensation-hungry public, Blum's ordinary life is turned inside out until she has to lash out to defend her own sanity. A German film made in 1975, The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum could have been made today in the U.S. Angela Winkler gives a compelling performance as Katharina, but the entire movie is superbly realized: suspenseful, compassionate, and shot through with dark humor. --Bret Fetzer

Customer Reviews

don't believe everything you read
German director Volker Schlondorff's adaptation of the novel by Heinrich Boll is a terrifying indictment of the perversion of "freedom of the press". Although all Katharina Blum appears to be guilty of is picking up a man from a party, that one night causes her notoriety when it turns out the man is an army deserter and a thief. It is assumed Katharina is suspect by association, and her life is scrutinised by the police and the "gutter" press, every nuance projected with ulterior motive. The police here are as much to blame for Katharina's nightmare, since they feed the press the details of her life and the press subsequently interpret them to present her in the most damaging way. The press' justification for humiliating her is that the public has a right to know, but whose life doesn't feature things to be misconstrued, or aspects that are so private that they cannot be explained? The point that the newspaper publishing articles about her is considered "gutter" doesn't alter the potency of the effect it has. The reactions of the public to Katharina demonstrates our willingness to believe the worst about celebrity, and the vicious food cycle of press and it's readership. Katharina's employer tells her that no one takes the paper seriously but she replies that everyone she knows reads it. The horror of this tale is the way Katharina eventually acts to restore her lost sense of honour, which ironically makes her a tragic figure, her story evidence of the cruelty of fate. Schlondorff undoubedly knows that this material is gothic enough without needing to highten it further with effects, and he presents it simply, with discrete almost inperceptible music. As Katharina, Angela Winkler has the ordinary look of her mousy housemaid, but also the dark eyes of someone with hidden depths.

a great film with an important message
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

The Lost Honor of Katherina Blum, originally released in East Germany as "Die Verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum oder: Wie Gewalt entstehen und wohin sie führen kann" which translates to: "The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum, or How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead" is an excellent film regarding the treatment of persosn suspected of consorting with terrorists. It is based on a book by Heinrich Böll.

I would assume the re-release was inspired in part by the September 11 attacks and the susequent crackdown on those suspected of helping terrorists.

In the film a woman is accused of harboring a member of a left-wing terrorist group. After her release, she is followed everywhere by a member of a tabloid newspaper and receives obscene hate mail and prank phone calls. The film depicts how every person who comes into contact witht he terrorist is followed by the police and checked out.

The film stirs worries that some have regarding their civil liberties in a post 9/11 America. I find the film to be quite good and is set against actual events in 1970's Germany during an uprising of a German terrorist group known as the RAF (Rote Armee Fraktion or Red Army Faction)

The Criterion Collection release has interviews with the film's two co-directors,Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta. and with director of photography, Jost Vacano.

Thre is also a documentary about author Heinrich Böll and a theatrical trailer for the film.

The film is quite good but is not for everyone.

Very Important Film To See.....
As I was watching this movie I couldn't help but be reminded of another story - 'the Trial' by Franz Kafka. Like 'the Trial's' main character, Joseph K, Katherina is a victim to a corrupt bearucratic system based upon ruining someone's life for the sake of others.
Whereas, I did not like 'the Tin Drum', Katherina Blum struck me very deeply - maybe because it is so real and relevent.
Along with this film I would recommend Fassbinder's 'Mother Kusters goes to Heaven' (a similar story about tabloid journalism following a tragedy).